Weathering the storm: Weather shocks and international migrants from the Philippines

Marjorie Pajaron and Glacer Niño A. Vasquez

No 460, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: The growing literature on environmental migration presents conflicting results. While some find that natural disasters induce international migration, others discover a dampening effect. We aim to reconcile these differences by using a comprehensive list of weather shocks from the Philippines, a country prone to natural disasters and a major exporter of labor. We constructed a longitudinal provincial dataset (2005–2015) from an assemblage of administrative and survey datasets and tested linear, quadratic, and lagged models. Our fixed-effects results are consistent with both strands in the literature with caveats. First, Filipinos are more likely to work abroad when they experience less-intense tropical cyclones and storm warning signal but are more likely to stay with a more damaging storm warning signal. Second, differential effects of weather shocks on international migration contingent on agriculture exists. Third, non-environmental factors such as economic (unemployment rate) and infrastructure (number of high schools) also push Filipinos abroad.

Keywords: Migration; Natural Disaster; Panel Dataset; Agriculture; OFWs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 C36 F22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-mig, nep-sea and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:460

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